A Declaration of Lin Dependence

By

Kevin Clark

February 8, 2012

Harvard graduates have spent the last 300 years conquering the Manhattan job market. They've been doctors and lawyers and bankers and senators. One of them, however, did something this week that they've never managed to do before. He saved the Knicks' season.

ENLARGE

New York Knick's Jeremy Lin smiles during Monday's victory against the Utah Jazz, a game in which he scored 28 points.
Associated Press

Jeremy Lin, the 23-year-old Knicks guard, has ascended from afterthought to New York folk hero in half a week. He is now the Knicks' starting point guard, leading them to two straight wins and scoring 25 and 28 points, respectively, this after topping 10 points just twice in a two-year career. He's also combined for 15 assists in the two games—no other Knick is averaging more than 4.2 assists per game this season. Just 19 days ago, Lin was playing a game for the Erie Bayhawks of the NBA's Developmental League.

Conventional wisdom pegs Lin's recent success as inexplicable. He was undrafted, has been released by two other teams, is rail skinny and before this week, he'd been considered a novelty who many assumed survived with only a Harvard-educated basketball I.Q. But here's the unusual twist in Lin's story: His success has little to do with smarts. He is, according to players, virtually unguardable.

Those who have defended him say that Lin has an extremely rare arsenal of moves—the byproduct of posture, bent knees and peculiar fundamentals. And while being a dribbling expert sounds as exciting as being a chef who specializes in porridge, Lin has made it a devastating art. Knicks guard Iman Shumpert, who first guarded Lin during lockout exhibition games and now does in practice, said his possessions play out like this: When he's close to the basket, he starts an "in-and-out" dribble with his knees bent and his arm straight forward, creating the idea he can go inside or outside—and he does both. All of this is combined with what Jerome Jordan calls a "lethal first step." Lin is, in short, the NBA's undetectable star.

The Count

"He's got these moves—he's so fast and he's not playing high, he's playing so low that he's attacking your knees with this dribble. It's in a place where as soon as you make a move he just blows past you," Shumpert said. "To be that low, to have it that far out with your arms, it's pretty rare. I've never seen it."

Shumpert, known as a good defender, said there's nothing you can do to take his dribble away and he does not let up. Lin has other moves, with teammates praising his crossover dribble. When he uses these moves to get to the basket (and he always gets there), he does one of three things: finishes at the rim; passes to center Tyson Chandler, who will be open due to the defense collapsing on Lin; or finding an outside shooter, who is the most open of all due to Lin's penetration.

China Real Time

"It's the quickness that's low to the ground. I'm not saying he's like [Bulls guard] Derrick Rose or anything, but when you watch D-Rose closely, he's low to the ground and when you're that low and that fast, you see [Lin's success]," said Bill Walker.

Lin, who holds an economics degree, said he spent most of his summers working on dribbling, but cannot pinpoint when he developed the stealth movements he's burning the league with. "I'm working on trying to make it more deceptive," Lin said.

Lin's actual genius is that he does things the rest of the Knicks do not do. While star Carmelo Anthony's game focuses on long shots, Lin drives to the rim consistently for high-percentage shots. Anthony's performance on Saturday, when Lin became a sensation, was a case study in inefficiency. Anthony took just two shots at the rim and made both, according to hoopdata.com. He took seven from 16-23 feet and missed all of them. Lin took eight shots at the rim and made six of them. In Monday's win against Utah, he took seven shots at the rim and made six of them. Lin's role will only increase. On Tuesday, Anthony was ruled out for one-to-two weeks with a groin injury, and Amar'e Stoudemrie said he'd take more time off in the wake of his brother's death.

Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni said that in a pre-draft workout two years ago, Lin showed a "nice gait" and a burst of speed, but not enough to draft him.

ENLARGE

Jeremy Lin took seven shots at the rim against the Jazz on Monday.
Associated Press

"I didn't know he could play defense, I didn't know he could shoot well enough, and I didn't think he'd go up and finish," D'Antoni said. "So, I'm going, 'Can't finish, can't shoot, can't play defense, I like his speed but I don't know.' Until we saw it."

The team is most giddy about Lin's ability to run the point. Chandler said the pick-and-roll play Lin runs is among the top three he's experienced in his career. D'Antoni said he was most impressed on Monday when Shumpert was standing in front of sharpshooter Steve Novak near the 3-point line—Lin yelled for Shumpert to get out of the way and passed the ball to Novak, who made the three. "You can't explain the game all the time and he knows the game," D'Antoni said.

"I don't want to get too far ahead but I am excited. He does give us the semblance of a team that can move the ball and get good shots," D'Antoni said. "It's fun. You can actually draw a play up and go, 'Hey, this might work'. He's smart. He's a playmaker."

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